When Philip Rahmanou reached his 13th birthday in Tehran, a barmitzvah was out of the question. Thirty-seven years on, he finally enjoyed a barmitzvah ceremony in a triple celebration with his son and father-in-law at Oxford Synagogue on Shabbat.
Back in 1985, the Iran/Iraq war was in full, bloody flow and children were its particular victims. Iran sent boys into battle against Iraqi tanks without any protection and deployed them to clear landmines. Shortly after Philip turned 13, the Khomeini regime lowered the age of conscription from 16 to 14. His family knew they needed to get their young son out of the country — and fast.
They wanted to send him to Manchester, where his uncle lived. But the visa didn’t come in time and he ended up in Amsterdam, where a rabbi arranged for him to stay with a local Jewish family.
Three months later, he arrived in the UK, where he lived alone in a bedsit. There, he learned to clean and cook for himself and get to school and back, staying with his uncle and his family on weekends. So although not having had a barmitzvah, he had become a man nonetheless.
Today, married with two sons and a gynaecologist of 25 years’ standing, the Cheltenham resident happily shared his belated big day with son Joseph and father-in-law John Troostwyk, 79.
“It was certainly of the ordinary,” Mr Rahmanou told the JC. “We even had sweets thrown at us three times.”
Mr Troostwyk concurred, adding: “I spoke to a number of my rabbi friends and they all said they’d never heard of a ceremony like ours.”
Now living in London, he had also missed out on a barmitzvah because of a wartime situation. His father was from Holland and most of the family were Holocaust victims.
His father survived because the Dutch Army had posted him to Britain, where his son was born.
The Shoah having made Mr Troostwyk disillusioned with religion, he didn’t return to Judaism until later life.
“I learnt about Jewish custom and practice through my observant wife, with whom I’ve now been married for 51 years.”
The triple ceremony was, in fact, the idea of the Troostwyks’ daughter Louise, Mr Rahmanou’s wife.
“When Joseph was born, I thought it would be wonderful for him share his barmitzvah with his father and grandfather,” she recalled.
“But I never said anything because I knew my dad had to make it [through],” she explained.
“When it was time to start Joseph’s barmitzvah lessons, I shared my long-cherished idea with his wonderful Hebrew teacher, David, who was immediately on board.”
And Joseph was equally enthusiastic. “As soon as mum told me, I thought it was a pretty cool idea. I’ve been going to cheder since Year 1 so I helped dad learn his bit of the service. We practiced together twice a week and he also had lessons on his own.”
For his part, Mr Rahmanou said he had underestimated quite how much he had taken on when he agreed to his wife’s idea.
“I had never before leyned and didn’t realise that there are no vowels in the Torah.
“Thankfully, my medical training means I am used to revising for tests and, in the end, I think I did OK. People kindly said I’d read better than they had expected!”
Mr Troostwyk — who was taught Hebrew by his other daughter — read the blessings before and after his grandson’s portion.
“My daughter had a wonderful idea,” he acknowledged. “As I was standing on the bimah, I thought: ‘[The Nazis] tried to murder us but here we are’. I just wish my mother and father could have seen me. They would have been so proud.”
And a little surprised, perhaps, to see barmitzvah cards arriving for a man approaching his eighties. “I support Spurs and one card read — ‘to a Spurs fan on his barmitzvah’. How excellent.”
Meanwhile, his son-in-law has received many barmitzvah presents in the form of bottles of champagne, some of it quaffed at the Malmaison hotel in Cheltenham where the family threw a barmitzvah party on Saturday evening.
